Jared on Tech

Jared Shockley, Information Technology Professional
This is my spot on the Internet for me to share my thoughts on technology, software, hardware, gadgets and IT in general. Please feel free to comment.

I am a hoarder much like anyone else. I have a lot of stuff in my house that needs to be sorted through and probably recycled, sold or thrown out. My server drives are full of information that "I might need someday". Worse yet, I got 3 Amazon gift certificates in the past 3 months and I still haven't spent the money on anything. I was looking all week at a couple of items and thought I would share some of my shopping fun.

"Cutting the Cord" is a catch phrase that is thrown around in this modern age. The main meaning is ability for many people to remove services that they used to pay for that seems redundant in these changing days, primary being television and telephone services. For me, I am fully cord cut when it comes to telephone and nearly cut with television. I will explain what I have done, how I came about my decisions and what it took to execute my cord cutting. In the end, there is no way to cut all cords unless you want to disconnect from the world and entertainment. Instead, the goal for most cord cutters is to run all of their needs across their data service lines. What you need to do is find your goals for cord cutting and then find what will help you achieve those goals.

I am an avid listener of Security Now! from the TWiT netcast network. Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corporation has a deep understanding of security down to the basic systems and even components to explain it. If it says anything, they just released their 373rd episode yesterday, October 10, 2012. This past episode was one of his Q&A shows. In it, Russell in London wrote in to explain something that he saw for Verizon Wireless users. What Steve explained was how CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Information) was going to be sold by Verizon to marketers unless you opt-out in the next 30 days. My reaction was "What? Is this something I need to worry about on another carrier?" The answer is an emphatic "YES" if you care about your privacy.